“Sit down!” As Alpha Yaya Diallo and his band took the Festival Tent stage last night, a few voices rose in anger to scold some late arrivals who’d decided to stand in between the rows of seats, blocking the viewplane of several audience members. One of the reprimanded dudes shrugged, look back at his friends […]
halifax jazz festival
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Jazz Fest: Sigesmund and Binney Brighten a Soggy Night
The ingredients were all there for a low-energy night at the Halifax Jazz Festival tent. The skies were ominous, the constant drizzle ever threatening to erupt into a full-fledged downpour and gusts of wind crackling the plastic tent covering and knocking sandwich boards to the ground. Viewers of the World Cup final had been drained […]
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Jazz Fest: Samba Nova and NSCC in the Afternoon
If it wasn’t for the matching green shirts and the colourful drums of varying sizes they held in their hands, one would never guess that the members of Samba Nova were all part of the same muscial posse. The Brazilian percussion collective is a multicultural, multi-generational group, with members ranging in age from 20 to […]
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Jazz Fest: De La Soul and Friends Kick Things Off
They were trying. Make no mistake, they were trying. As nominal frontman Posdnuos kept reminding the rabid crowd at the Halifax Jazz Festival tent last night, he and DJ Maseo were doing their level best to carry the De La Soul banner with the third member of the legendary Long Island crew unable to perform due to a leg injury. But as they said way back on their 1989 debut album 3 Feet High and Rising three is The Magic Number for De La Soul. And with MC Dave’s absence leaving the group one Plug short, their headlining show wasn’t
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Alex Cuba’s code
Alex Cuba has taken a break for lunch. The Cuban-born-and-raised singer/guitarist is between two workshops on Sunday at the Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Canso. He’d already worked on two others the day before and played the festival main stage on Friday night. “They got me working,” he jokes. Along with Kieran Goss and Lynn […]
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Sunny De La Soul
In the suburbs, summers are characterized by a few things: the lukewarm tang of rum and cokes poured into plastic bottles; the smell of the grass in the empty soccer fields near your house and the insistent thud of hip-hop from your friend’s dad’s Jeep. And for many summers, there were only three groups that […]
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Pegging down the Jazz Fest tent
After this year’s Halifax Jazz Festival wraps up, it’s curtains for the tent at the corner of Queen Street and Spring Garden. “Right now the jazz festival takes up that whole corner. Clearly that’s going to change,” says Susan McLean, deputy CEO and director of public services for Halifax Public Libraries. The new Central Library […]
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Elizabeth Shepherd’s salvation
Vocalist and pianist Elizabeth Shepherd had an unlikely musical educator: the Salvation Army. Growing up with parents who were Salvation Army ministers, she spent her childhood moving around Canada and France, with the church as the main basis of the family’s social life. The Salvation Army “was a great foundation for music,” she says, listing […]
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NOMO standing still
We don’t know a lot about this Ann Arbor, Michigan, band, but they get a lot of love from NPR, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. The write-up in the Halifax Jazz Festival guide for says that NOMO is known “to send journalists-on-duty into dancing fits,” which doesn’t sound pretty. Have you seen journalists dance? To test […]
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Jazz Fest daily picks
The Extremities, De La Soul, Ali Shaheed Muhammad Friday, July 9, 8pm Festival Tent, Spring Garden Road at Queen Street, $30-$33 Halifax duo Fresh Kills and Uncle Fester warm up the crowd with a set sure to please jazz freaks and hip-hop heads. Then we’ll put on our old Nike Dunks for De La Soul […]
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Um, De La Soul is Opening the Halifax Jazz Festival
Sue Carter Flinn just told me that De La Soul is opening the Halifax Jazz Festival. The fest runs July 9-17th this year. I don’t know anything else and they don’t have anything else up on their website. But apparently this is happening and is for real. More info soon. EDIT: They’re playing with Ali from A Tribe Called Quest and Extremities. Eeeee! Tickets on sale this Thurs. If you have no idea who or what I’m talking about, click this link and close your eyes. Welcome to summer city.
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Jazz Fest review: Spontaneous Combustion Orchestra
Music scholars have concluded that The Beatles were greater than the sum of their parts. Unfortunately, last night’s Spontaneous Combustion Orchestra proved that the parts were greater than the whole. One musician seated nearby commented, “It’s trolling for moments.” As a presentation argument for spontaneously improvising chamber orchestras, the concept has encumbrances. And as the experiment unfolded, that became starkly apparent. On the Neptune Studio Theatre stage, each of the previous (and largely successful) Spontaneous Combustion units: guitars, strings and reed instruments with percussion, were positioned at ominous distances, orphaning them. Whereas the small groups thrived, thanks to close proximity